June 16, 2018
Lisbon is blessed with at least 12 million tourists a year and that could be seen from the sea of people walking around the hilly city, many dragging their luggage.
There is so much to see from building to building, store to store.
A short walk from our hotel is the Rua Augusta, a “pedestrian only” street filled with shops and restaurants. There are also dozens of restaurants set up right in the middle of not only R. Augusta but there are restaurants too along R. do Comercio, Rua de S. Juliao, Rua da Conseciao.
The sun was still up, medyo nagpapagutom pa kami and we couldn’t decide where to eat so we kept on walking till we reached the Santa Justa Lift, a 45 meters towering elevator right in the historical part of Lisbon.
View from the elevator’s top must be spectacular but we didn’t want to line up for for tickets and we were still tired. We just arrived from a 24 hour travel to get here. While we were nakatunganga, a Filipina noticed us and we engaged her in a get to know you conversation. “Hi kababayan”. “Ay Pilipino rin pala”. “Matagal ka na ba dito?” Kailan ka huling umuwi sa Pilipinas? May mga kamag-anak ka ba dito? “Marunong ka na bang mag-Portuguese?” Her answer was yes to all. Tiga Pangasinan sya. She goes home regularly, like every other year.
We started walking towards the direction of where we came from. We looked at the menu of one of the restaurants in the middle of the pedestrian street. After seeing the picture of the grilled seabass and paella, dito na lang.
Pwede na. Okay lang. So so.
